Reuters obtain video of Nigerian soldiers killing captives in Maiduguri

The trend of circulating gory videos of brutal killings is gradually becoming a norm in Nigeria.
A video obtained by Reuters news agency shows soldiers shooting unarmed captives in broad daylight by the roadside in Maiduguri, the citadel of Boko Haram insurgency.
According to Reuters, the video was taken by a soldier who said he was present while the shootings took place two weeks ago. The soldier, who wouldn’t want his name mentioned, passed it to the news agency on Sunday.
Giving the video analysis, the reports say, “In the grainy footage, a man sits down next to three or four corpses piled together on the roadside. He pleads for his life while soldiers shout at him and a crowd looks on a few metres away. “Please don’t fire,” the man says in Pidgin English.
“He tries to stand up and get onto the back of a pickup truck to the left. A Nigerian soldier shouts “come out”, and drags him off it, shoving him on the ground.
“One of them kicks him in the head. Then he and another soldier aim assault rifles at him. Four gunshots are heard and the man lies still next to the others.”
Another video from the Reuters, which he said was taken after the executions, shows soldiers piling up about two dozen bodies in two bloody heaps on the ground from the back of a military truck.
Colonel Mohammed Yerima, Nigerian army spokesman said he hasn’t seen the video but that the whole scenario must have been staged.
“How can they do that? It is not possible. This is the Boko Haram tactics. They will do the killing, say it’s the military and then Amnesty International and so on will blame us. It’s not possible for Nigerian troops to act in this way,” Yerima said.
It would be recalled that there have been several allegations of misconduct against the Nigerian soldiers in the Joint Task Force in charge of maintaining peace in the turbulent Northeast zone where Boko Haram members have staged many attacks. But the military has always refuted their involvement in such inhuman acts.
But contrary to their claims, The Guardian of London on November 2, 2012 reported a similar case of soldiers callously shooting many villager to death during a raids in Maiduguri. The reports also quoted witnesses and hospital staff.
Three witnesses nailed the soldiers. They alleged that the military men from JTF raided several neighbourhoods in Maiduguri November 1. During the attack, they arrested or shot dead dozens of young men.
“More than 30 bodies were brought in by the JTF and most of them were young men,” A nurse at a hospital in the town, Yagana Bukar was quoted to have said.
A report released earlier this month by Amnesty International has it that the JTF on several occasions has committed human rights abuses in its fight against Boko Haram.
The reports also condemned JTF acts of torturing people in the streets without real investigation or proper charges.